The Mixers are underestimated IMHO. STM 4896 can do pretty much everything a professional desk like Sony DMXR100 can do and some more.

Right now I have two meters of Faders (64 peaces at a spacing of 2.98 cm) in front of me and it is fun working with it. One of the reasons is the useful lookup table implemented for the limited 7bit resolution. However, support for MIDI CC is limited to 128 at the moment. (only 1 MIDI channel).

/* SC developers: you can fix this in 5 Minutes ?! */

Future plans include changing to more powerful PIC (eg. ATMEL) with USB interface, OSC replacing MIDI, 10bit resolution or better and of course: long (motor-)faders.

One way I previously used to control such big devices, is this: When going to another 'page' of the mixer, using external MIDI remote, also load a new MIDI preset. So you could make for example 4 MIDI remote presets for the STM4896, each controlling one page. That way, you can use 4x 120CC or so for one device.

It's a bit of a dirty hack, making it difficult to record inside a sequencer remote control signals for channels on different pages simultaneously. But for controlling the mixer purely from a remote console like a Peavey PC1600x with only 16 faders and 16 buttons, it works ok.
For example, my SX remote presets have fader 16 on each Peavey preset sending a 'panel selection', setting up SX to listen for the same CC but on a different selection of the VST/MIDI mixer, ie ch1-12,13-24, ... allowing my presets to control 128 audio and 128 MID channels with just 2 Pc1600x presets. One other preset allows for control of all VST plugins, on a per-channel basis, as fader 16 controls the channel from which it would control the plugins.

I hope this opens a new perspective on this matter, so you can achieve what you need without having to pull S|C's developers for device adjustment. I do realise, this technique is not adequate for a 48 channel remote console, but it works great for 8-16 fader remotes.

Handwriting these presets for Peavey's PC1600x to make it the most extensive control surface available for SX took me about 2 months, hectoliters of coffee and truckloads of THC. More on my Pc1600x presets here.

Did you try Wolf's mixer? It has great midi capabilities (multichannel) and it's designed from ground up to work with control surfaces (it even gives feedback for motorfaders, display and leds). The downside is that it's "only" 32 channel mixer...

I'm looking for a commercial hardware controller too. Tascam discontinued the US-2400. I would need 2. Is there anything affordable, out there. Euphonix..too expensive...so is Mackie. What kind of commercial DAW controllers can you guys recommend for this mammoth Sonic Core Mixer? BTW...I think you have a great start on your Dedicated Mixing Desk!

Joel there seems a ton of Mackie stuff on sellout.
Not sure what's behind this (and if you can really get it at all), but some shops advertise the Control C4 Pro for 400 Euro instead of 1300.
I ordered one when I noticed it supports the TX802 sys-ex stuff preprogrammed, but withdraw the order when delivery was delayed with unspecific date.
Maybe the Box with faders has a similiar pricedrop (in some places).